In politics, media, and business, these families have muscle and aren't afraid to flex it.

Bush

Bush

An American political dynasty to rival the Adamses and Kennedys, the Bush family has been an inescapable fact of American life since the early 1950s. It has produced a senator, two governors, and, most notably, two presidents, not to mention several members of Skull & Bones and two wars with Iraq. The clan also, for a time, threw its cap into the sports ring, when George W. Bush bought a share of the Texas Rangers baseball team, and has made a mark in fashion via Lauren Bush, a successful model and designer who married Ralph Lauren's son David. The saga continues: George P. Bush, son of former Florida governor Jeb Bush, recently launched his own political career, in Texas.

The Bush clan, photographed at their summer compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, 1986.

Kerry

Kerry

John Forbes Kerry didn't quite make it to the White House, but the craggy former Massachusetts senator, who is fluent in both French and German, gets to fill Hillary Clinton's well-traveled shoes as secretary of state for the next four years. In addition to his political achievements, Kerry, a descendant of John Murray Forbes, a railroad magnate and merchant, has raised two accomplished daughters from his first marriage: Alexandra, a documentary filmmaker, and Vanessa, a physician who founded the Global Health Service Corps. Kerry's second marriage, to Teresa Heinz, linked the Brahmin Forbes clan to the Pittsburgh ketchup dynasty.